I was wrong.....about double-weightedness

[Fu-Pow]

In regards to an earlier post. I forget who else was posting on the thread....anyways, double weightedness is not clearly distinguishing between yin and yang. ( I had posted earlier that it was having your weight equally distributed between both feet.) Interestingly, this is as far as the definition goes because no one can agree what is yin and what is yang, only that they should be clearly defined.

Fu-Pow

http://www.fongs-kungfu.de/assets/images/lionhead.gif

"Choy Lay Fut Kung Fu does not encourage its students to abuse or harm others with no reason. Nevertheless, in times when Kung Fu must be performed, Choy Lay Fut requires the student to change from a gentleman into a fierce and cold fighter."

-Lee Koon Hung,
CLF:The Dynamic Art of Fighting

[Braden]

"this is as far as the definition goes because no one can agree what is yin and what is yang"

If you practice the internal arts properly for a while, the proper definition imposes itself upon you. It's just difficult to communicate to someone who hasn't experienced it.

[Fu-Pow]

This observation is from T.T. Liang. As is the comment about yin and yang.

Fu-Pow

http://www.fongs-kungfu.de/assets/images/lionhead.gif

"Choy Lay Fut Kung Fu does not encourage its students to abuse or harm others with no reason. Nevertheless, in times when Kung Fu must be performed, Choy Lay Fut requires the student to change from a gentleman into a fierce and cold fighter."

-Lee Koon Hung,
CLF:The Dynamic Art of Fighting

[Braden]

*shrug* I'm not familiar with Mr. Liang's methods. I do know how yin and yang presented themselves experientially to me, and I do know that I can speak to others who've had the same experiences and there is no disagreement upon definition.

[Fu-Pow]

Since you are so absolutely clear on the subject then would you kindly define.....

thanks

Fu-Pow

http://www.fongs-kungfu.de/assets/images/lionhead.gif

"Choy Lay Fut Kung Fu does not encourage its students to abuse or harm others with no reason. Nevertheless, in times when Kung Fu must be performed, Choy Lay Fut requires the student to change from a gentleman into a fierce and cold fighter."

-Lee Koon Hung,
CLF:The Dynamic Art of Fighting

[Repulsive Monkey]

as far as double weightedness, can be seen as which leg is full/substantial and which leg is empty/insubstantial. Full and empty are in fact the indicators as to double weightedness. When the weight is equally divided between the both, neither foot/leg is obviously substabtial or insubstantial there one cannot really issue from the back foot as neither is full or empty.

[Fu-Pow]

Aaahhhh...but it is not necessarily an issue of weight, it is an issue of defining yin and yang. The classics state that double sinking is not an error. Braden is going to enlighten us as to what is yin and what is yang........

Fu-Pow

http://www.fongs-kungfu.de/assets/images/lionhead.gif

"Choy Lay Fut Kung Fu does not encourage its students to abuse or harm others with no reason. Nevertheless, in times when Kung Fu must be performed, Choy Lay Fut requires the student to change from a gentleman into a fierce and cold fighter."

-Lee Koon Hung,
CLF:The Dynamic Art of Fighting

[Braden]

No, I'm going to wait for you to read my first post again.

Although it's easy to talk about it physically in the legs, I first understood it in my hands. It's not that "it doesn't have anything to do with weighting" - that isn't true. But it's not equivalent to weighting. It's something else.

[Kumkuat]

Isn't double weightness means a posture where you can't do peng, lu, ji, and an sucessfully on any part of your body?

[Fu-Pow]

Ok I re-read your post. Let's look at it from an academic perspective.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> If you practice the internal arts properly for a while, the proper definition imposes itself upon you. [/quote]

So I obtain the proper definition by practicing properly? But then how do I know I am practicing properly if I don't know the proper definition?
This is a circular statement.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> It's just difficult to communicate to someone who hasn't experienced it. [/quote]

You could at least try. Or what is the point of responding? Just to tell me that you can't communicate?

Fu-Pow

http://www.fongs-kungfu.de/assets/images/lionhead.gif

"Choy Lay Fut Kung Fu does not encourage its students to abuse or harm others with no reason. Nevertheless, in times when Kung Fu must be performed, Choy Lay Fut requires the student to change from a gentleman into a fierce and cold fighter."

-Lee Koon Hung,
CLF:The Dynamic Art of Fighting

[Braden]

"So I obtain the proper definition by practicing properly? But then how do I know I am practicing properly if I don't know the proper definition?
This is a circular statement."

Unfortunately, that's how things tend to work, especially in the internal arts. The good news is that all you have to do is practice and listen to your body and everything will fall into place.

"You could at least try. Or what is the point of responding? Just to tell me that you can't communicate?"

The point of responding was for those people who would know what I was talking about and those people who will find out someday and get that 'oh yeah' feeling. I don't think anything good can come out of trying to describe it, so I won't.

[Sam Wiley]

Physically, you might say that if both legs bear the same amount of weight, they are double weighted. And if both hands are flexed the same amount at the same time or strike at the same time, they are double weighted. If you transfer weight between the legs so that one bears more weight, then you are more mobile, and not double weighted. If you strike with one hand just before the other (even in the posture "push"), then they are not double weighted. Of course, there is the point when transferring weight from one side to the other where both legs or arms "weigh" the same, but it is, just as in the I-ching, a transition point.

So, to use an example from a Taiji form: When you do the opening movement, you do not stand with your feet planted without transferring weight. The weight must be shifted slightly onto the balls of the feet and then back again. That takes care of the front and back of the feet. Weight must also be transferred right to left, so we transfer most of the weight onto the right foot first, then the left, and then back again. The weight transfer then takes on a circular shape: From double weighted to right heel, right toe, left toe, left ball, and back to the center again. (Of course the weight keeps shifting into the next movement.) But the hands must also not be double weighted. So we move the left one first, then the right. The left hand goes yin and begins its ascent, followed shortly by the right hand. Because the left hand moved first and began the transition to yin first, the right hand will turn yin slightly after, keeping them from being the same during the move. As the hand begin their descent, the left one goes yang first, and when the right hand follows it down, it begins changing to yang as well. Although at one moment both hands might be yang or yin, one is more yang or yin than the other, and therefore, even though both might be the same to an observer, they are not in reality.

This same thing applies to the whole body. One side of the abdomen will be yang and the other yin, one scapula will be yang and the other yin, etc. Sometimes the front of the body will be yin and the back yang and vice versa. It gets real subtle and real complex, especially when dealing with your form.

On the more esoteric side, if you meet force with force, you are double weighted. If you react to a situation or a person with anger, you are double weighted. If you throw a punch using just your arm muscles instead of your whole body, you are double weighted. All these are examples of two things working in opposition to each other and hindering each other.

When the unstoppable force meets the immovable object, that is double weighted. So is the force that can't move anything meeting the obstacle that can't withstand any force at all.

If you want a definition of yin and yang, that can get pretty complicated, too. For instance, with the first movement of the form, we transfer weight to the right leg, which makes the left yin and the right yang. But if you define yang as giving and yin as receiving, then the left leg is yang and the right yin. If you define yang as attacking and yin as defending, then when we execute the application behind the posture, we first are yin as we defend and then yang as we attack. But if our defense must become our attack, then these blocks are strikes as well, and that is yang, though it is not as yang as the following strikes.

You could also take this movement, lifting the arms to block and lowering them to strike, and look at it as a sine wave. Picture a point on a crest of the sine wave. If the sine wave doesn't move, but instead this point travels along it, it will be on the crest at the beginning, travel down through the middle, and end up at the trough, and then continue to the crest again. When we perform the block from this posture, the left hand strikes first, in a yin shape, and as it changes to a yang shape to strike, the right hand goes yin to strike block, and as the left hand rebounds off the opponent, the right hand goes yang for the strike. I could go into mind numbingly deep and philosophical detail about the interplay of yin and yang here, and how although the hand might be yin it is really yang, and so on, but this is something you really need to firstly experience and then meditate on, yourself.

These are more everyday definitions of yin and yang and their interplay than you will find in some philosophy book, and they actually have to do with martial arts.

My advice is to not try and define the interplay between yin and yang, but rather try and embody it.

You might ask "how can you be if you don't know," and other than trying to refute desCartes' argument for existence by kicking the table and asking if the table thinks, I would ask you "how can you know if you don't experience?" Just practice, and the answers will come. And when the answers come, you will know because you can then read the classics with which they have to do and begin to understand a little about what they mean.

And if you get all the answers before I do, let me know, eh? ;)

*********
"I put forth my power and he was broken.
I withdrew my power and he was ground into fine dust."
-Aleister Crowley, The Vision and the Voice

[Sum Guye]

What are you guys smoking?

Double weighting can easily be explained:
Double weighting= giving yourself more than one center of gravity.

If you stand on both feet (evenly weighted or not)
you have one center of gravity- directly between those feet.

If you then, bend over forward at the waist so far that you feel off balance- now you have TWO centers of gravity. One between both feet, the other directly below your chest- THAT is being "double weighted". It is also the point at which you can most easily be off balanced by an opponent. (if you can make your opponent 'double-weighted' you'll throw him easily).

I can't tell if Sam Wiley is kidding or not with that rediculous explaination... if Sam is serious, I certainly hope he hasn't been wasting money on a teacher who would instill such nonsense.

Peace, Love and hotties
Sum Guye

[wujidude]

"Double weighting" is not always easily defined when practicing any taijiquan solo form. No matter whether the weight is between your legs (sorry, had to get that one in) or somewhere else, only one point in your body is the center of gravity. It's physically impossible to have two centers of gravity, at least under the physics I was taught.

Simply leaning doesn't give you two centers of gravity. In Wu Jianquan taijiquan, baguazhang, and some of the Drunken styles there are forward leaning and other postures that from outside might appear to be off-balance or "double-weighted," but because of the internal physical connection really isn't. The key is whether you can move quickly and fluidly, maintaining balance. I don't practice the Drunken forms, but that's how they were explained to me.

The clearest explanation for double-weighting for me came in conjunction with applications training, when throwing. Your center of gravity and your opponent's are separate. The closer you can get your center of gravity to your opponent's, the easier and quicker the throw will be. Basically, like trying to merge your two separate centers of gravity into one. The context for this explanation was a hip throw. I don't know how applicable it is to other two-person situations, but it made sense there. Kind of like you take control of your opponent's center of gravity and make it follow your own.

[Fu-Pow]

Side note, all others disregard:

Ahhhh....the mysterious Wujidude, who claims to know me, appears again. Still not willing to reveal your identity to me?
Oh well, life goes on.....

Continue discussion here:

Braden, you continue to be enigmatic about this topic. I will discontinue questioning you because you seem unwilling to part with any experiential insights.

Sam Wiley, thanks for the comments. You basically are stating what T.T. Liang stated in his book. That people disagree upon what part of the body is yin and yang, but that defining them is important.

Sum Guye, you woulndn't know this unless you had taken physics, but you can't have two centers of gravity because you can't have two center of mass. It is physically impossible. Now matter how oddly shaped an object is (ie the human body) it is possible to calculate one center of mass for it at any given time. It is, however, possible just to be off balance.


Is there anyone that disagrees with my original statement that double-weightedness is a failure to clearly distinguish yin and yang?

Fu-Pow

http://www.fongs-kungfu.de/assets/images/lionhead.gif

"Choy Lay Fut Kung Fu does not encourage its students to abuse or harm others with no reason. Nevertheless, in times when Kung Fu must be performed, Choy Lay Fut requires the student to change from a gentleman into a fierce and cold fighter."

-Lee Koon Hung,
CLF:The Dynamic Art of Fighting

[[Censored]]

I think Sum Guye meant that if your actual center of gravity is in a different location then an ideal center (where you can maintain position with your structure and without muscle), you are double-weighted.

If you are double-weighted, any attempt at total relaxation would likely cause you to topple over immediately.

I have heard a few definitions of double-weightedness, of which "failure to distinguish yin and yang" is IMO the least appropriate to discuss.

[stephenchan]

Books always talk about double weightedness as having your weight on both feet - this is really simplistic and doesn't really get at the heart of the matter.

If I remember what Chen XiaoWang said correctly, being double weighted means that you've lost your ability to generate "peng" in all directions. Having peng in all directions means that you can do a smooth transition into another position without breaking your jing.

You can be single-weighted, but with your weight physically evenly divided between your feet. At a svery simplistic level, the important thing is to not be dead on your feet - which can happen no matter how your weight is distributed.

--
Stephen Chan

[Water Dragon]

I think Tim Cartmell has provided the best answer thus far. Double Weighting is always in reference to your opponent. Anytime that you oppose or resist the other guys center, you are double weighted. Maybe think "double centered"

Most actions of men can be explained by observing a pack of dogs. Not wild dogs, just neighborhood dogs who all scurry under the fence on the same night and set off together to reclaim a glimmer of the glory their species possessed before domestication.

[Sum Guye]

Fu-pow,

If something has one center of mass-
and is balanced.... how does it then become
unbalanced? (answer: by moving it's center
of mass without moving its base accordingly..... which is 'double weighting')

[crumble]

"Anytime that you oppose or resist the other guys center, you are double weighted."

I think one of the additions to the classics (I forget the author's comments) says "do not meet force with force." If you do, you are in a sense giving the other guy some of your balance, you are double weighted.

-crumble

[Sam Wiley]

According to Louis Swaim's translation of Fu Zhongwen's book Mastering Yang Style Taijiquan, Yang Cheng-fu said, "If one is able to distinguish empty and full, the body's turning motions will be light and agile, and there will be no wasted strength. If one is unable to distinguish, one's steps will be heavy and sluggish, one's stance will be unsteady, and one will easily be unbalanced by an opponent's pull." While earlier in the same passage he does refer to the weight being on one leg or the other, this particular part can be interpreted as having a deeper meaning.

When we begin to learn about double weightedness, we are told about the legs, but it goes deeper than that. Gung fu teaches more than just fighting, and we learn those lessons by learning to fight a certain way. After learning about the legs, we move on to other things, like opening and closing movements to gain power, and then living yin and yang in the hands, etc. And all these things have to do with progressively elimintaing double weightedness throughout the body. It progresses from there to eliminate double weightedness in the being and not just the body.

The best way to learn about double weightedness is to look at the way everything in Taiji is done. Almost none of the postures or training methods are done with the weight evenly distributed between both feet. There is always one bearing at least a little more than the other. The reason is because that makes you more able to adapt quickly to changing situations without having to first get out of a cumbersome stance. Once you see it being done, and know why it is done that way, and can to a reasonable extent apply it in training, you can try to apply it to other things besides your training.

You cannot have two centers of gravity, and double weightedness has nothing to do with your center of gravity being outside of yourself as you are unbalanced. You cannot be double weighted if you are unbalanced, as you have already gone past that point. However, double weightedness does invite a state of unbalance, as you cannot straddle the line forever. You must either go one way or the other, taking yourself into a state of malleable balance where you can adapt, or be driven or invited into a state of unbalance by an outside force. One of the things that makes a master a master is that he can remain balanced and adapt to situations, and that he is not off balanced or driven to react a certain way by an outside force.

*********

[Water Dragon]

Some people explain double weighted as both feet touching the ground at the same time or both hands striking at the same time. Thus, one hand and one foot means single weighted. This explanation is the worst kind of misunderstanding. We should understand that single weighted or double-weighted is not a matter of outer appearance but of the inside. Taijiquan is only the exercise of a central pivot. When you have found where this pivot is located, then your feeling will become spherical and every place will be single weighted, If you do not find the center of gravity, then your feeling will become stagnant and every place will be double-weighted. And it is not only the feet and hands--even one finger will be double weighted, --Xiang Kairen

Here's a link to the whole article, Good Stuff:

http://www.nardis.com/~twchan/ph.html

Most actions of men can be explained by observing a pack of dogs. Not wild dogs, just neighborhood dogs who all scurry under the fence on the same night and set off together to reclaim a glimmer of the glory their species possessed before domestication.

[Sum Guye]

Fu Pow,

Since you understand physics... why is it so much easier to lift a 50lb barbell than a 50lb chain?

and... where/how would one find the center of gravity for a bag of water?

and... isn't it time to loose the blinking lion
thing on your posts? :p

[Fu-Pow]

I think I may have found the answer. The problem is in the translation. To paraphrase from Yang Jwing-Ming's Advanced Taiji Chuan (I'd quote but don't want to get in trouble.):

The expression double weighting comes from two chinese characters. One way to translate these characters is Shuang Jong or "double weighting." However, the characters can also be translated as Shuang Chung or "double overlapping." This means "mutual covering and resistance" and has the sense of two forces struggling against each other, each striving for the upperhand.

So basically double weightedness means struggling against your opponent. I think someone alluded to this earlier in the thread.

Fu-Pow

http://www.fongs-kungfu.de/assets/images/lionhead.gif

"Choy Lay Fut Kung Fu does not encourage its students to abuse or harm others with no reason. Nevertheless, in times when Kung Fu must be performed, Choy Lay Fut requires the student to change from a gentleman into a fierce and cold fighter."

-Lee Koon Hung,
CLF:The Dynamic Art of Fighting

[Fu-Pow]

tttttt

Fu-Pow

http://www.fongs-kungfu.de/assets/images/lionhead.gif

"Choy Lay Fut Kung Fu does not encourage its students to abuse or harm others with no reason. Nevertheless, in times when Kung Fu must be performed, Choy Lay Fut requires the student to change from a gentleman into a fierce and cold fighter."

-Lee Koon Hung,
CLF:The Dynamic Art of Fighting

[wujidude]

Fu Pow IS the "blinking dragon". ;)

[Fu-Pow]

WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?

Fu-Pow

http://www.fongs-kungfu.de/assets/images/lionhead.gif

"Choy Lay Fut Kung Fu does not encourage its students to abuse or harm others with no reason. Nevertheless, in times when Kung Fu must be performed, Choy Lay Fut requires the student to change from a gentleman into a fierce and cold fighter."

-Lee Koon Hung,
CLF:The Dynamic Art of Fighting

[Sum Guye]

Ah... now I understand.